Clause 20: claims, disputes and arbitration under the 1999 Red Book
Clause 20 governs the procedure by which a Contractor's claim is notified, substantiated and determined, and the machinery by which a dispute proceeds through the Dispute Adjudication Board and into arbitration. It carries the twenty eight day notice at Sub-Clause 20.1, the particulars which must follow that notice, the Engineer's determination, the appointment and decision of the Board and the conditions on which a dispute may be referred to arbitration.
The navigator holds thirteen analyses arranged in eight categories covering claims, the Dispute Adjudication Board and arbitration, and runs from Sub-Clause 20.1 through to Sub-Clause 20.8, so that the notice provision, the determination and the dispute machinery are read as a single sequence rather than as separate problems.
That sequence is the substance of the clause and the reason it is read as one. A Contractor who gives notice in time but cannot substantiate the claim stands in a different position from one who never gave notice at all, and both differ again from a Contractor whose Engineer has failed to make a determination. The clause treats each of those positions differently, and the navigator keeps them apart.
Each of the thirteen analyses is banded as high, medium or low risk. The highest band is given to the twenty eight day notice as a condition precedent, to the question of when the Contractor's awareness sets the period running, to prospective and retrospective notice, to the relationship between the prevention principle and a condition precedent, to the enforcement of a decision which is binding but not final, and to the position where no Board is in place.
The machinery surrounding the notice is treated on the same footing, including the obligation to keep contemporary records, the appointment of the Board and the deadlock which arises where the parties cannot agree upon it, the eighty four day period for a decision, the amicable settlement period, and the consequences of a failure to comply with a final decision.
The navigator is based on the 1999 edition of the Red Book and is available to Pro members of SCCSI.